


Opening

by pqlaertes



Category: Books of Magic, Doctor Who
Genre: Adventure, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pqlaertes/pseuds/pqlaertes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor rescues Tim Hunter from alien invaders, but when the TARDIS is invaded, it will take both of them to save Tegan, Turlough and themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opening

_13 August_

_What's the point of having a time machine if you're no good at getting it to go where you want it to? But then, I guess you could ask, what's the point of being on the way to being the most powerful magician of the age if you can't even manage to take your girlfriend to ice cream when you promised? Anyway that's what Molly asked, when she was taking a break from shouting at me. I_ think _it's one of those things where she pretends she's really serious and angry until she gets me properly worried and then she makes fun of me for taking her seriously. Besides, she did get her ice cream today, and it's not like she was going to spontaneously combust without it._

 _I tried to explain to her about yesterday, and I think she believed me and didn't believe me at the same time, which is okay, I guess, because after I got rescued from the three-headed aliens, things_ did _start getting really weird._

_\--_

__

The boy - Tim - had a flop of brownish hair, a long face, black-framed, square glasses. Human, more human than Tegan even, and that was saying a bit.

He looked like Skeat, whose spot beside Ibbotson in such Brendan traditions as the Three A.M. Cold Shower or the After Dinner Kidney Punch Hour had always been assured, until Turlough showed up with his manners and his skinny chest and presented a really delicious target. Turlough was better than Ibbotson, even; Ibbotson only cried; Turlough actually tried -- with little success -- to resist his fair share. Two years later, the poundings had mostly stopped and he'd discovered that kids who'd resist ed could intimidate kids like Skeat and Ibbotson into almost anything.

This kid looked like a struggler. Just now he was weaving on his feet, and bruises were forming around the places where the Doctor had pulled the feeler wires out of the skin of his face, but he had managed to introduce himself and even make a feeble joke when the Doctor had freed him.

Tegan, clever enough for an Earth girl, but out of her depth and out of breath -- the usual -- demanded, " _He's_ the power source you've been on about!?" The Doctor had set her making a diversion while they'd been unplugging Tim. She had a long new scratch down her arm, which she jerked away from Turlough's gaze.

"It's not uncommon to use living creatures as power sources, especially in areas where other resources are scarce." Turlough explained to her, politely. The Abek Harrim, otherwise almost as laughably backwards as the Earthlings they were invading, had managed to just about take over England thanks to the power they'd been pulling out of Tim. One more reason not to turn their backs on the kid.

Tegan, as usual, looked to the Doctor for confirmation. He nodded, wearing the quietly disgusted expression that always made make Turlough feel nebulously guilty, whether he'd done something or not.

\--

They rounded a corner and security bots surrounded them. Tegan had seen really proper robots in her time on the TARDIS, nasty blobby ones on wheels and delicate filigree ones that crawled the walls like spiders and even ones you needed a magnet to tell from real people. These were just junk - chunks of rock with something on board to keep them airborne and other bits of machinery welded on all haphazard. They had some kind of onboard laser guns that were as likely to explode as hit their targets. Dangerous either way.

They veered for Tim, who tried to run and just about fell over. The Doctor grabbed the kid's arm and ran like a colt, managed to dodge them through a little farther. A swarm of bots strung together by a net of bright metallic strands came down on him. His arm caught in the net and a bot careened into his head with a dull _thunk_. Tegan saw his eyes roll up and a slack expression fall over his face before his head dropped against his chest.

Even while Tegan was running towards him, the bots moved to wrap him further in the netting, tangling, sometimes crashing into one another. She had to dodge another swarm and saw him dragged off down the corridor. Tegan ducked under and sprinted, calling for him.

A running body collided with her suddenly from behind and Turlough's skinny arm clamped across her waist. She felt him pant against her neck as he dragged her backwards. "Come on, Tegan," he gasped out.

"Let go!" She pried at his arm.

He was stronger than she was, and some alien twist of muscle gave him the leverage to keep her feet off the ground part of the time.

"Tegan, _look_ at him!" Turlough forced her to look at the kid, who was pressed against the wall, bots swooping over him. He looked like just standing up was pretty well beyond him now. "Do you really think the Doctor would want him left alone?"

"Bastard! Let _go_!" She finally got her elbow in his stomach, cutting off the stream of what he would probably have termed 'reason' that he was trying to get in over her shouts.

Bots circled and came down at them. Turlough dove for the wall, shoving her down. A bot smacked into the wall over their heads and caromed aside; dropping a lump of wiring on them. Turlough batted it away, hissing as it spat sparks on his hand. "We get him back to the TARDIS. Then we can get on with rescuing the Doctor." Turlough whispered insistently, holding her against the wall.

She pulled away fiercely, but helped him gather up the kid and run for the TARDIS.

\--

_I know, it seems like a completely crap thing to do, running off after this Doctor guy had just saved me from spending the rest of my life as a battery, but guys like that never really need rescuing. The Professor Unlikely type, long coat, no proper name, already knows everything, just hasn't bothered to fill the rest of us in. This guy was just John Constantine's good twin._

 _

\--

_

Without Tim as a power source, the bots were losing velocity and altitude, clunking into the walls and each other more and more frequently, but they couldn't be too far behind.

Tegan punched his chest, quite hard, with her little fist. "This is _your_ fault!"

"That's not fair. Be sensible, Tegan. I assumed you had the key."

She got around behind him and began pulling his jacket off. "So what do we do now? Hide behind the TARDIS I suppose? There's no where left to _run_ to."

So it was back to that, was it? "We couldn't have done the Doctor any good if we'd stayed."

"Discretion is the better part of everything with you, isn't it?"

Then, moving like an armada of drunken bees, the bots arrived.

Tim was just standing there, looking at the TARDIS door. "Get behind the TARDIS," Tegan shouted at him, giving him a shove.

"I think , um. . . I might be able to get this open." Tim put his hands on the door, eyes vague with concentration.

"Bit young for lock picking, aren't you?" Tegan snapped at him. She whipped Turlough's jacket at the security bots, managed to make two crash into each other. They exploded.

Turlough dodged shrapnel, turned to see Tim's bony schoolboy hands disappear into a distortion like a heat shimmer. He stumbled back, grabbed Tegan's arm, hand clenched too hard for her to shake him off.

Uncolor blossomed under the boy's hands and Turlough shrieked. The TARDIS was unfurling, unraveling in double-exposure with reality. Tim was in it. Tegan was torn out of his hand. Turlough flailed as bots surrounded him and felt a filament of netting sting across his cheek. Then a roundel like a maw surrounded him and, helpless, he fell under the dark.

\--

__

_Well, I figured they had to call me an Opener for something._

_Why is it that the really really shitty ideas always seem like such good ideas just before you do them?_

__

\--

  
"Come on, Turlough. Look, it's the console room."

"Does he do that a lot?" Tim asked, leaning against the wall and watching the hyperventilating Turlough with interest. Tim was looking better - the TARDIS had that effect on people.

Tegan glared at the kid, but at least the remark got Turlough to stop hiding behind his own skinny knees. He gazed up at Tegan for a moment with that utterly Turlough melange of shame, lingering terror, and slyness, then sat up straight, took a deep breath, flashing Tim a sour glance. Tegan knew from experience that he'd be twitchy for a while. You almost felt sorry for him. But then, Tegan had to admit, she'd done her share of screaming in there; she didn't much like getting dragged through nothing, or seeing the TARDIS interior do something like the limbo, just barely scraping by underneath the surface of reality.

Tim hadn't so much as complained about the TARDIS being bigger in than out; just looked around and accepted it, and then he got a really good look at Turlough. He stage whispered, "Uh, Miss? Tegan? Did you know he's not, um, human?"

Twitchy or not, that raised a razor grin on Turlough's narrow face.

The sooner they got rid of this kid, the better she'd feel. "Yeah, I know." Hell, did she even know any humans anymore?

\--

_Now, Molly, being Molly, got this theory right away (when I was telling her) that Turlough was like those Crossmaglen kids she used to know, the ones who saw their whole families die for no good reason and stopped being able to see that there could ever be a good reason to let yourself get hurt._

 _

Or maybe he was just a creep. I don't know.

Tegan, well, John told me once that Lucifer had retired to Australia.

And then . . . Tegan reminded me of Molly somehow. I didn't tell Molly that.

_

\--

Good to be back in the TARDIS, anyway, the sweet roundels of home. Forget the kid for now, get the Doctor back, save the world. Tegan put her hand on Turlough's knee. "You think you can fly 'er?"

He looked up, startled, then smiled at her, started to look cocky, nearly smug. He stood up and put his palms together. "I suppose I . . . _could_ try my hand." It was almost pitiful; all you had to do was treat him like a person.

"Let's rescue him, then."

When it came to dials and switches, Turlough was almost as good as the Doctor. One plus of traveling with technologically advanced aliens, anyway. He checked the console and froze. "Oh no."

"What's wrong?"

"It seems that when our friend here opened the TARDIS' dimension to normal space, he opened it to some other dimensions as well." There was an air of drawling drawing-room venom that Turlough got sometimes. Ordinarily, Tegan wouldn't have liked to see it turned on a kid.

Tim frowned back at him. "You never mentioned it was a soft place. I thought I was just opening a door."

"It's a time machine, " Tegan corrected, having no idea what he was talking about. She joined Turlough at the console. "Are you saying something's got on board?"

He nodded, twitchy all over again.

\--

_This TARDIS thing was brilliant. I mean, you see spaceships on TV or in the movies and they're like boats or something, there's this big sort of piloting area at the front where everybody's strapped in and they sort of sail around. Even I've paid enough attention in Science class to know there's no reason for all that. You ran the TARDIS from this big console in the middle of a nice white room with a hatstand and a big leather sofa in the corner. The console looked like the front panel of Jimmy's mother's Cuisinart, the one that does everything but suck your toes, but underneath all the dials and things, I think underneath it was really magic. All the stuff that the three-headed alien morons had been draining out of me, it felt like the TARDIS was giving back._

 _

And Tim the Magnificent had just opened up this magic box to something really nasty.

\--

_

  
The Abek Harrim are not the brightest three-headed race in the galaxy. For this reason, it took the Doctor much longer to get them to understand that they would be in considerable trouble if they ever tried to invade Earth or kidnap a sentient being for use as a power source again than it took him to escape, overcome their security grid, and rewire their miserably backwards technology.

He had them put the TARDIS off in the middle of a field before they took off, and when he saw the mark on the door, he at first thought that they had managed to damage the exterior shell. Then his fingertips sank into the shrinking discontinuity. He marched into the TARDIS, shouting in outrage.

"Who let an Opener near my TARDIS!?"

There was no one in the console room, although Turlough's jacket lay crumpled on the floor.

It must have been the boy. That was why he had been such a perfect power source for the Abek Harrim; if they had any technical skill at all, they probably would have blown themselves up, along with most of the planet, tapping into an Opener.

If Tim Hunter had applied himself to the TARDIS he could have sent himself and the Doctor's friends to any number of other dimensions. Fortunately, the jacket suggested that they _had_ been here.

The Doctor glanced at the controls and immediately saw what Turlough had, but understood a great deal more. "Oh no," he whispered to himself, "Eternals."

\--

__

_I was taking a nap at the time. The Red-Headed League had been fussing over the console, Turlough pretending he understood what the machine was telling him, Tegan pretending she understood what Turlough was talking about, and I just dropped off on the couch. I had been being a battery for the last ten hours, remember, and I was finally starting to feel better. And when I woke up, they were gone, and there was just this thing there that kept trying to look like John Constantine, only, his trenchcoat kept wadding up and his cigarette kept burning out and he kept turning into a sort of hazy blob of light. Couldn't even get the voice right._

_He told me I was a deformation in reality, so I told him to piss off. Then he started calling me an Ephemeral. I didn't know what that meant at the time, but I was going to get sick of the sound of it very soon, let me tell you._

_Why don't I ever meet somebody magic who speaks normal English without weird words or everything being riddles? It must have taken me twelve minutes to figure out what this guy was trying to tell me. He was a god, see. Apparently not a really brilliant one, because he'd lost some kind of game with a bunch of other gods and ended up stuck in another dimension for a long, long time._

_Until Tim the Really Just Tremendous came along._

_\--_

__

A single evening had summed up Turlough's experience of exile on Earth. The mild charm of the out-of-bounds party had faded within minutes. Someone called Ibbotson's girlfriend a Paki, in a voice that carried around the room, and Ibbotson's cheeks went mottled as she ducked her face into his shoulder. Trubitt pressed a telephone receiver into his hand. "It's that poor fool Skeat. Talk to him, won't you?" Skeat was almost incoherent with misery. He had been caught drinking on campus. They were going to throw him out. Turlough had tried to cheer him up at first, but then passed the receiver off. He had walked to the bathroom and found a blond girl in a minidress curled up around a straw and a mirror. He had stumbled back to the dormitory, feelin g his lack of freedom like a garrotte around his throat.

"Humans, hungry for their own deaths. All Ephemerals are, but Humans . . . "

It wore the lined and narrow face, the eccentric violet suit, of his keeper, Wakeman, who had overseen his exile on Earth. But it wasn't Wakeman.

"I know."

"Does this interest you, Turlough? Molding the galaxy? Ruling it? I think it might. And then the universe to follow. With my support, you could have everything you wish. Serve me, and you will be master of all that is."

Turlough looked at the Eternal placidly and thought very hard about how nice it would be to rule the galaxy.

\--

There is no place worse than the Void. The games are themselves essential, but there must also be rewards for the winners, and there must be punishment for the losers. The Eternal currently failing to wear John Constantine's shape had missed the places where it could feel reality folded close, like a sleeping child. Missed the universe - that sublime playing field.

And this Ephemeral had not only opened the way back, but would make an excellent Champion; the images in its mind were so sharp they wavered on reality already. But whenever the Eternal began to shape reality finally to those forms, harden and set them, they faded out of place. The others must be molding their own Champions already, far ahead, but after so long in the wastes, it was pure pleasure to be thwarted and to try again. Here was the perfect desire of an Eternal - something wholly unexpecte d.

"If you've been locked up so long with those others, I'd think you'd want to get out, be by yourself a while."

It was still trying to be John Constantine. "You can't understand. We're Eternal. We need . . . entertainment. There's nothing else but . . . boredom. Boredom and the Void."

"You should talk to my Dad. He never used to leave the television either."

It tried to form a Dad, a Narl, a Molly, a Yo-yo. Each boiled with unreality and melted back into the crispness of the Ephemeral's mind.

"Look, that's enough. Leave my head alone, okay?"

A Wobbly. A Titania.

"Stop it."

A Mother.

"You're really not going to stop, are you? Well, hell, I've always meant to try this."

The Ephemeral did something with its mind, something an Ephemeral shouldn't be able to do. Something came through the clarity of that mind like light through a lens. The Eternal understood how totally it had miscalculated. This delighted it.

It was probably the most delighted frog that had ever existed.

Tim picked it up and put it in the roomy front pocket of his jacket, where it waited to see what this delightful Ephemeral would do next. And began to wonder if there were any lovely juicy flies around, and where the nearest water was.

Flies.

Water.

Oh.

\--

_Well, I mean, if you're going to be a magician, you might as well have the perks, right? And it didn't quite hurt, having that thing going into my mind and trying to make parts of it into real things, but it felt bad. I told Molly it felt like bei ng raped, and she told me to shut up, because I didn't know what I was talking about, and I expect she's right._

 _

I had asked it to stop.

But it wouldn't have stopped. Not unless something juicier than me came along to play with.

_

\--

Never trust an alien. If they're not actually trying to take over some part of the universe, if they're not actually completely nasty, then they get themselves killed, or they leave you, or they turn out to look sweet when they're asleep, just when you've made up your mind to smother them with a pillow. Or they tell you your mind is free when it isn't free at all. As bad as people, aliens.

Tegan stared at roundels, trying to will her mind empty, kill off each unborn thought before it could even begin. Beside her, Mariner sat watching with great interest.

Was it the same Mariner, or just some other Eternal who'd plucked out this face from her mind? Did it really matter?

"Tell me about these aliens of yours," it begged, "or, tell me about trees. Tell me about your eighth birthday party."

"Go away," Tegan said through her teeth.

It's face melted into another shape, no longer Mariner but now a startling blend of Simon and . . . who? Oh, B'Sar, of course. Her first and her first alien. Naturally. She didn't particularly care who messed about with Simon's face, but B'Sar had died for her and Nyssa. "Stop it. That's horrible."

"Tell me. Why is it horrible? Would this be more horrible?" Turlough now, an impossible Turlough who looked at her with innocent calf's eyes. "What about this? Horrible?" The Doctor, leaning in to her needily.

Tegan ran away, even though she knew the Eternal would only find this more entertaining.

\--

The Eternal wearing Wakeman's form had seen Turlough's potential from the first -- his instinct for convolutions and tricks, his greed. After this first game, the endless twists of their shared campaign would entertain for years. Under the control of an Eternal, Turlough's potential would be fully realized at last. And control is precisely the forte of the Eternal.

Control, though, is only control, and not understanding. Wakeman had read only so much of the roiling scattershot thoughts that ricocheted endlessly through Turlough's mind.

Driving that stolen motorcar, the act that had led to the end of his exile, had been only one incident in a progression of self-destructive stunts that, uninterrupted, would inevitably have ended in Turlough's death. And he had known far greater despair since then, had begged for the freedom of death, had leapt off a ship and into space. To free himself.

He had been a Champion of a kind once, and it had choked him like ash and feathers on his tongue.

"You agree to my proposal," the Eternal continued, "you shall be my agent, and I will help you to gain all the power you wish."

Quiet, almost serene in his hidden desperation, Turlough said, "Yes, sir."

\--

_And what did the Mighty Tim do, once he'd vanquished his foe? Well, he got lost. All the corridors in there look the same, just white walls with this pattern of circles, on and on and on, and I swear, I turned around once and the direction I'd come from had turned into a dead end one step behind me. The TARDIS was having its revenge, I think._

\--

"Oh. Doctor." Tim Hunter had the look of a person whom the TARDIS corridors had been toying with.

"Ah, there you are." The Doctor paused expectantly. "Where are Tegan and Turlough?"

"Don't ask me, I'm lost."

"I see. And do you usually try to poke holes in technologies you can't even navigate in?" As the Doctor's voice got louder it tightened, as if his throat was closing.

"Oh, um, you know about that, then."

"Do you have any idea the possible results of causing a leak between normal space and a TARDIS!?"

"Look, I'm sorry. How was I to know it was a time machine? I was just trying to get the door open."

"Sorry." The Doctor took a deep breath. "Sorry. Shouldn't have shouted. It's just that I'm a bit worried about Tegan and Turlough."

"I expect they've got bored gods messing with them."

"Bored gods? You mean Eternals?"

Tim produced his frog. "Like this."

The Doctor whipped out a pair of half-spectacles and peered at the frog. "You did this?"

Tim's face fell. "Did I mess up again?"

The Doctor's face lit with a very young grin. "Not at all. A leech might have been more appropriate, but this certainly has its appeal."

"Leeches?"

"Mm. And as I recall, they have a particular taste for Tegan. Come along, Tim."

\--

__

_So it was the Trenchcoat Brigade all over again. Come along, Tim, look at that, swim this river of blood, don't talk to the thing in the boot cupboard, it only speaks Bocci._

__

\--

It had put snakes down her arms and for a little while she just gave in and screamed at it.

"Tell me about fear," it whined, when she'd calmed down and all her thoughts were stillborn again.

Fear is wondering whether she'd go mad before she gave in to this thing. Fear is knowing that something like the Mara was in your head, just the place where Eternals like to stick their paws and fish things out.

She could fight, she could unthink her thoughts, she could even ignore it, go to sleep. It wouldn't mind any of that. It would enjoy it.

The White Guardian had got rid of the Eternals last time, just sent them off. Tegan bit her lip; helplessness made all her swallowed shouts taste like sobs.

"Tell me about desolation."

An orchard when it's been dry for too many weeks and something catches and it all burns down. Still dead earth, smell of ashes and cooked fruit. The smell of apple pies in hell. Not meaning to, she gave the Eternal this, and felt her stomach roiling as that smell pervaded the TARDIS corridors.

\--

"Now, Turlough. Our first step." Wakeman put a gun in his hand. Familiar as can possibly be, a 67-R. Mother's favorite. "Up ahead is my first adversary, grooming an Earthling as its Champion. Eliminate that Earthling."

Turlough always felt better with a weapon in his hand. It gave you some kind of control.

\--

It found the cave finally, inspecting her memories of it. Tegan slipped into a state of terror that the Eternal smiled over, savoring, complimenting her on the textures of her baser emotions.

Up ahead, the cave began to take on reality. The Eternal started to guide her inside, inclined its face - now the Doctor's, now Lon's, now the sunken face the Mara had first shown her -- to hers and said, "Show me. All of it."

A hand, strong and pale, cuffed in fawn piped with red, closed bruisingly around her own hand and jerked her suddenly sideways. There was a moment's whiplash of tail against her arm and then someone ran past her fast enough to knock her off balance.

She fell into something warm, her face momentarily pressed into the smell of apples, fresh sweet ones, and nutmeg and old books and celery. Then the Doctor was getting her upright, steadying her. TARDIS light, TARDIS walls.

"Doctor?"

He looked as if he were going to say something truly comforting and sweet. Then his eyes widened. She turned to follow his gaze just in time to see Tim fall back from the force of the explosion.

\--

Had Turlough really been as sneaky as Tegan, or he himself, thought he was, he might have got away with it, sent the Eternal back to the void to re-form, as he had Wrack and her lieutenant. His fingers were long and nimble over the controls of the gun, guided by thoughts fragmented and all but hidden by the endless roil in his mind.

But it was enough to betray him. As the self-destruct engaged, the Eternal abandoned the physical form whose rules it would have been bound to, just long enough to avoid the blast as the gun exploded.

\--

"What the hell was that?" Tegan gasped.

At almost the same moment, Tim got himself up off the floor. "He got away."

The Doctor pulled her along to the turn in the corridor. There was an old man there, in a purple suit, with a cane, standing over - god, no. Even the tie was shredded.

The old man shook his head, said, "Well, die then. If you can't do anything else."

Tim said, "That's enough. No one's dying today just because you don't have the gonads to keep yourself entertained."

Tegan started to sprint forwards.

The Doctor's hand clamped on her shoulder. "Not now, Tegan."

"But Turlough - "

"I think that's about to be taken care of."

Tim crossed his skinny arms across his skinny chest and looked at the Eternal, wearing an expression that was a particularly complete strain of teenaged disdain. "That's enough."

"This one disappointed me. I could have been his master. Now," here a vicious kick into Turlough's side, "I am his death."

"Death? Give me a break. Death'd laugh herself sick if she saw you. Or be sick, maybe, I'm not sure."

"I am Eternal, " snarled the old man, "by your conception, a god."

Tim smiled, a sideways, cutting grin worthy of Turlough himself. "Nobody seems to know much about my conception, actually. Now, let's see."

\--

__

_"A frog!?_ " Tegan was just about ready to run screaming. The Doctor had watched the kid do - unquestionably, unmistakeably - magic, with mere interest.

Tim shrugged at her.

Tegan, trying to stay well away from the kid, bent down to get a better look at Turlough, who was starting to look more like a person and less like ground beef, now the Eternal was out of the way. Come to think of it, her head had stopped having that s lithery pain now. Bits of shrapnel in the walls were fading away.

The Doctor was sitting on his heels, checking Turlough's temperature with his knuckles. He looked past Tegan, up at Tim with something in his expression - something that was there when he looked at the Master, and the Guardians, and even with Nyssa, an d even with Turlough once or twice when they were doing their gentlemen-of-the-universe bit, reviewing the Eye of Orion as a vacation spot or working on something technical. Not respect quite, but, maybe the way the Doctor looked at someone who was someth ing like a peer, something like an equal. "Will he be all right?" he asked.

Tim shrugged, bent forward. In a loud voice, he said. "You can get up now, I've stopped him making you be dead."

Turlough's eyes fluttered open. Then he sat up, slowly. "Doctor? Tegan?" For just a second Tegan saw an expression of utter . . . relief? contentment? joy? cross that narrow face. "What's happening?"

"That's what I'd like to know," said Tegan as she and the Doctor got Turlough upright. She still kept her eye on the kid.

The Doctor smiled at her, a sunshine, brave-heart smile that maybe he'd never give to a peer. "Not just now, Tegan. I'm afraid here _is_ still another Eternal on the loose."

\--

_I don't think I'd ever really saved somebody's life before. It was kind of cool. After that I sort of felt about Turlough the way I think Death thinks about people - the way she looks at them. I felt like life, like his life, was very, very import ant, and his being creepy didn't really affect that. Like . . . I don't know how to say it. I'd kind of like to talk to her about it. But I guess I can wait for that._

\--

Turlough was eyeing the frogs. "Is that really him?"

"Mm." The Doctor had his glasses - just an affectation, Tegan was sure - at the end of his nose and was peering into the blinking lights revealed by an open roundel.

Turlough stepped to look at the frogs from another angle. "Anyone got a golf club?"

"That's unnecessary," the Doctor chided.

Tim added, "and gross."

"What about a cricket bat?"

The Doctor hmphed, offended.

"I do think I'd feel safer with those gone." Tegan said grimly. "Couldn't we do _something_ with them?"

Turlough nodded, " _Thwack, squish._ I'd feel _much_ better."

"Besides," Tegan added, "what if those things start thinking real hard about nice juicy flies? I don't much fancy buzzing around under my own power."

"They're harmless. Now be quiet, the both of you. This calls for some rather - " he grunted, turning something with his fingertips " - delicate - " he grunted again, pushing harder, "-- maneuvering."

"Can I help?" Turlough asked, crowding in.

The Doctor turned him back with an impatient stare. "Just be silent for a moment."

Turlough frowned, and then stood over the frogs, mimed a backswing, a strike, raised his head and shaded his eyes with one hand to track a parabola in the air that ended abruptly in the dead end at the end of the corridor. He made a face of exaggerated disgust.

Tegan choked on laughter.

The Doctor glared over his shoulder at them.

"Oh, what're you doing anyway? Eventually that Eternal's going to get bored enough to come poking around after us Ephemerals, and then we point Tim here at him and its frogs all around, right? You don't mind being our secret weapon, do you Tim?"

"Yes."

\--

_If I were stuck with living forever and not being able to think for myself, I guess I wouldn't mind being a frog. I mean, you get sunshine and water and stuff to eat and you're happy, or otherwise you're just trying to get those things. You don't g et tired of it; you don't need to be entertained._

 _

I was starting to feel sorry for those Eternals now. I mean, forever's a really long time not to know what you want.

_

\--

"Now. Tim?" The Doctor had patched an amazing amount together very quickly. What the result was supposed to do was unclear, but Turlough fervently hoped that none of these wires had actually been needed by the TARDIS.

"I'm not a welding torch, you know."

"Yes, well, if you happen to have one handy . . ."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Fine." The wires, rather than melting, grew into place like vines.

"Excellent. Now - "

The electronics he'd been working on sparked once in his face and then the wall rippled and went blank, void even of roundels.

The Doctor stood blinking at the wall for a long moment.

"What's happening?" Turlough hissed, unnerved by the Doctor's silence more than anything else.

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm too late. The Eternal has breached the TARDIS."

"But it could already turn reality into anything it wanted," Tegan protested, "what does it need the TARDIS for, quick trips to the chemist?"

"Eternals are empty, Tegan. They continually want, but they never know what they want. They need minds to draw from."

"Don't I know it."

"It won't risk coming near us with Tim here, so it went looking for another sentient being. We were all right as long as it hadn't found one yet."

"But who? D'you mean there's someone else on board?"

Turlough had seen it already. So he'd been right. Turlough's early sabotage attempts had soon given over to research, secretive study of the fascinating Gallifreian technology. He'd begun to suspect that there was an element of sentience in the TARDIS several months ago.

"The TARDIS herself, Tegan."

"The TARDIS?"

"Yes, yes. Why not? And it won't want to give her up any time soon. The old girl _has_ seen it all."

"I'm guessing this is a bad thing?" Tim asked.

"The TARDIS is a remarkably powerful machine, and in combination with the powers of an Eternal, well, you can see how quickly it's mastered the ins and outs of the interior configuration." He gestured to the newly blank wall.

"Better than you," Tegan groused.

"Well," said the Doctor, and took a long sighing breath, "as long as it doesn't find the Singularity Cage."

"What's that?" Tim asked.

"It's absolutely imperative that we evict this Eternal from the TARDIS before it discovers the Cage."

Turlough's mind made quick connections with some of his other suspicions about the TARDIS. "This Cage -- a means for containing a black hole, harnessing its power . . . "

The Doctor flashed him a look he couldn't read. "Oh, better than that. The Singularity Cage holds a gift the White Guardian gave me. A sliver of Enlightenment. It's probably the only thing the Eternal would want more than the TARDIS itself."

"But," Tegan tried to interrupt.

"It looks like a box, no more than so big, " He held his hands close together. "The Cage is constructed so that nothing inside can get out, and nothing outside can get in. Not even thought."

Turlough was beginning to feel very uneasy. "Doctor, I don't think - "

"Just a box, with Enlightenment inside. Just think of it."

"Think what could happen if the Eternal got into it." Tegan groaned.

But the Doctor didn't respond. His eyes were on his hands, which were still shaping a box in the air, Tim's eyes were fixed there too, and then Tegan's and Turlough's. Because there was a box there now, a real box. Made of some white stone with an inner luminance. The Doctor looked at it, sighed, weighed it in his hands, and put it down.

"Well, thank goodness for that."

"Is that the Singularity Cage?" Turlough asked. Like the Guardians' diamond, it seemed to want him to touch it, want him to take it. He pulled back, his hands knotting together.

"We've got to hide it," said Tegan.

The Doctor smiled and shook his head. "No, no. There's no need for that now."

"But the Eternal -- "

"Is inside already. I knew it would still be monitoring our thoughts, especially mine, through my link with the TARDIS," he explained airily. "So I thought up a little trap and the Eternal very cooperatively built it for me."

Tegan stared at him. "You mean, you made the whole thing up?"

Insufferably pleased with himself, the Doctor smiled. "I pictured this imaginary box in my hands, and so did all of you. The Eternal did what Eternals do best, put it there, exactly as I described. Then Tegan was kind enough to help us picture the Eternal getting into it."

"Welcome, I'm sure. Now what's to stop it getting out again?"

"I don't imagine it will really want to leave. After all, it is in there with our combined conception of Enlightenment, as well as its own, if it had one. We'll eject it into the Vortex, just in case."

"But - "

"Come along. It's time we were getting back to the console room. There's a great deal of cleaning up to be done."

\--

The Doctor had already set up a little wading pool in the bathroom for the frogs. Tegan had to admit, they croaked quite tunefully.

Turlough was sitting on the couch drinking tea. Besides the usual quivering aftershocks, he looked like he was having his own doubts about being near somebody who could zap an Eternal. Tim seemed nice enough, but Tegan was glad that he wouldn't be staying around. There were levels of weirdness that she didn't think they were ready for yet.

"There, Ravensknoll Estates. Tuesday. Fifteen minutes after the Abek Harrim kidnapped you."

"Good. Great. Um, bye then." Tim waved goodbye a little shyly, and then walked out of the console room. He looked just as glad to be going.

The Doctor was doing his best to be gruff, but he kept bringing them tea, and he kept talking to Turlough about planets she'd never heard of, and before long the two of them were reviewing the cuisine of Darveg and planning a dinner out. Oh well. It wasn't like she knew any humans.

"You two _are_ taking me for ice cream after, aren't you?"

"Oh, absolutely," said Turlough.

"Hmm," said the Doctor. "First I think I'd better track down the spare keys."

\--

_So I thought I'd be fine, right? because the Phantom Cricketer had dropped me off in his time machine and so I'd be there right in time to take Molly out for ice cream. Only, it turns out he's not all that brilliant at actually piloting the thing, because it was Wednesday afternoon, not Tuesday. And that's why I got an earful at home and another at the ice cream place and had to buy Molly a double dip cone, which barely left me enough for a little cup of pistachio with no whipped cream or sprinkles ._

 _

And I should never, ever, have told Molly I could turn people into frogs.

_

 

 

 

=1998=


End file.
